All Things To All People
by Lady Eleanor Boleyn
Summary: Jo is the central character in Louisa Alcott's 'Little Women'. But is she really the glue that holds her family together? My musings on Beth March having watched the new adaptation of 'Little Women'. No plot, just a character study. Marked as incomplete because I may add stories about life after Beth as the mood strikes.


Margaret and Robert March have no idea, when they first cradle their third daughter that cool April morning of 1839, that she will become the linchpin that holds their family together.

Oh, Marmee, as her two elder daughters call her, is relieved that Beth, as she is soon nicknamed, Elizabeth Charlotte being far too long a name for such a little girl, is an easier baby than either of her older sisters were, content to lie in the cradle for hours with barely a peep, leaving Marmee free to run after the determined Meg and the newly-rambunctious toddling Jo, but she doesn't think far enough into the future to consider how tight the bonds binding Beth to each member of her family might become.

The first hints of it come as soon as Beth is old enough to display a preference for one of her sisters. No sooner can she walk than she gravitates to the raven-haired Jo, often curling up against her older sister's shoulder and begging her to read to her, or to play dolls with her. Up to that point, Jo has not been nearly as maternal as Meg, who is four when their youngest sister, Amy, arrives in the world, and loves nothing more than to try and treat the baby as her little girl, at least as much as Marmee and Hannah will let her. Jo has much preferred to run after her father when he goes out to shoot, begging to be allowed to go too, or to throw her dolls down the staircase than to tuck them nicely into cradles. But something in the shy, sweet toddler touches a softness in Jo that she usually prefers to keep well hidden. Before long, it is not unusual to see the two middle March sisters together, their heads, one dark, one a soft red-gold that looks as though it belongs in a sunset rather than on someone's head, bent over a book as Jo sounds out the words of a beloved fairy tale for her younger sister.

In many ways, as Hannah later says to Marmee, it is as though Beth seeks to cast herself as Jo's special charge, to keep Jo from resenting the special, indulgent bond that Meg has established with Amy.

It is not the last time that Beth interposes herself between her older and younger sisters. As they grow, it becomes increasingly clear that hot-tempered, impulsive Jo, and wilful Amy, who can so easily have her head turned by material things, are both too different and too similar not to clash, unless someone else is there to temper them both. Beth walks the line skilfully, often able to calm Jo's temper before she sees red with rage, while at the same time offering the vivacious Amy a mirror in front of which she can shine. If it weren't for how self-effacing Beth manages to be, the youngest, prettiest March sister would often find herself pushed aside even more than she already is. By allowing Amy to steal the limelight that should really be hers by virtue of her superiority in age and in musical talent, Beth averts countless tantrums that Marmee, Father, Meg and Jo don't even realise are brewing behind Amy's cerulean eyes.

Meg, meanwhile, seizes upon Beth's obvious skill at the piano as they grow older and takes full advantage of it, coaxing her most pliant sister into playing waltzes, quadrilles and country dances by the bucketload so that she can practice her dancing for hours on end, often bullying the taller Jo into playing the men's part if her father isn't available and/or willing to indulge her. Indeed, so frequent are these sessions that visitors to the March household sometimes tease Beth by calling her 'Meg's little hired musician', something she always ducks away from, scarlet and tugging on her plait to hide her face, until Jo comes charging in to rescue her, brash and bristling in her defence.

As the war brews and then spills over into a boiling cauldron of hate and violence and gore, the March sisters begin to grow into women. The first year of the war scarcely touches their sleepy little corner of Massachusetts, but, early in 1862, it intrudes in the harshest way possible, snatching away their beloved father, just at the time when the growing March sisters need him most.

Jo suffers most from having her idolised father taken from her, but that necessarily means that Beth suffers too, for the more Jo struggles, the harder she leans on her gentle sister. That is, perhaps, the first intimation Beth receives that others need her quite as much as she needs them.

Her painfully small social circle broadens all the more when Jo befriends their neighbour's grandson, Theodore 'Teddy' or 'Laurie' Laurence, and that, in turn, brings Beth into contact with the elder Mr Laurence.

They don't speak much at first, when he comes and sits silently in the drawing room, listening to her play, after Laurie has encouraged her to come over and play the piano. Indeed, the first few times he comes in, they don't speak at all, for she emits a pained squeak and scuttles home, her normally pale cheeks burning scarlet, the moment she realises he is in the room.

But one day, having sat and listened to her play for more than a quarter of an hour, he holds up a hand to stop her as she packs up to leave.

"What's your name, child?" he asks softly, "They call you 'Beth', I know that. I've heard my grandson call it across the fence often enough. But 'Beth' isn't a distinguished enough name for a talented young lady like you. So, what's your real name?"

Beth hesitates, then darts her eyes up to his grizzly beard and then up further, to his dark, shadowed eyes. She only holds his gaze for an instant, but even that is a challenge for the sweet, shy Beth, and Mr Laurence seems to realise that, for he doesn't push her to hold his gaze as other adults might. Instead, he simply waits out her silence, until she finally stutters, "Eliz-Elizabeth." And then, because just her first name doesn't seem to fit the solemnity of the moment, "Elizabeth Charlotte, Sir. Elizabeth Charlotte March."

She sketches a curtsy as she speaks, but Mr Laurence doesn't seem to notice. His eyes darken with pain the moment she utters the word Charlotte. Beth freezes, knowing deep in her bones that she has somehow mis-stepped, but not knowing in the slightest how to put it right.

At last, Mr Laurence sighs deeply, though almost to himself, as though he doesn't want Beth to hear him, "My daughter was a Charlotte too."

Then he waves Beth away, and they don't speak of the moment again, but a few afternoons later, when Beth returns from an errand for Marmee, there is a beautiful cabinet piano standing in the parlour, with a note saying, 'Miss Elizabeth Charlotte March' on the top of its glistening brown lid.

Laurie begins to spend more and more time with them all after that, and though it is Jo and Meg he spends the majority of his time with and squires about town whenever they require it, there is something in the lively boy that, like the bolder Jo, is touched by Beth's soft, sweet nature. When his friends, the Vaughans, ask about the March girls before they meet them, Laurie describes Jo as 'almost as good as a boy, a cousin if not a brother', Meg as having 'a maternal streak a mile wide, when she's not mad for dancing and giggling with Sallie Gardner', Amy as 'a charming child who thinks of nothing so much as growing up', before pausing and exhaling. "Beth," he says, "Beth is the little sister I never knew I wanted until now."

Jo's Bethy.

Meg's musician.

Amy's mirror.

Marmee and Hannah's angel in the house.

Mr Laurence's little girl.

Laurie's surrogate sister.

It would be an exaggeration to say that Elizabeth Charlotte March knew many people, but it would not, perhaps, be one to say that, to those she does know, Beth is capable of becoming all things to all people. Is it any wonder, therefore, that her death leaves a gaping hole in the midst of her family?


End file.
